St. Stephen, First Martyr Wednesday, 26th
December 2019
A drama technique that film
directors sometimes use is to follow a quiet sequence with a burst of noise, or
a noisy sequence with a period of silence. The sharp contrast strengthens both
sequences. That’s what the Church does in today’s liturgy. It follows the
tenderness of Jesus’ birth with the violence of Stephen’s death. This heightens our appreciation of both
events. Divine tenderness stands in stark contrast to human violence.
Acts
6:8-10; 7:54-59 . Matthew 10:17-22
Martyrdom of Stephen: They
rushed at him and stoned him.
It was human violence, like
Stephen’s death, that made Jesus take flesh and live among us. He came to
transform our violence into his gentleness.
****
Is our witness to divine tenderness
more eloquent than our witness to human violence? Do we scream and shout rather
than respond with gentleness? “Learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in
spirit.” Matthew 11:29
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We are still very
much in a festive mood, with Christmas carols like "Silent Night, Holy
Night" and "Joy to the world" still ringing in our heads and
maybe we are still bloated from all the feasting. Well, today the Church opens
up the liturgy with, of all things, the gruesome and shocking martyrdom of St.
Stephen. Somehow the tenderness of Christmas is shattered by the violent
execution of St. Stephen.
Why didn't the Church
move this feast to anytime, maybe in Lent, so that we can still have that soft
and warm Christmas feeling and just talk about angels and shepherds and baby
Jesus?
Well, the martyrdom
St. Stephen has a deep connection with the birth of Christ.
Somehow Christmas have
been embellished and glossed over with so much sentimentality that we forget
that Jesus was born into a hard, cold and violent world.
The Son of God had to
born in stable, of all places, and laid in a manger. Not long after He was
born, King Herod was looking for Him to kill Him.
That was only the
beginning of the violence and the persecution that Jesus was going to face, and
it would eventually lead to His execution of the cross.
Yet when we reflect on
the joy of Christmas and the martyrdom of St. Stephen, we see the connection
between divine tenderness and human violence.
Christ came to heal
our human violence with His divine tenderness, expressed in mercy and
forgiveness, as witnessed to by St. Stephen.
Let us also believe
that the ugliness of human violence can only be changed with the divine tenderness
of forgiveness and love.
The young man by the
name of Saul in the 1st reading, who approved of the killing, would later be
touched by divine tenderness, then changed his name to Paul and went forth to
proclaim the tender love of God and His forgiveness.
So in the face of
human anger and violence, let us stand firm on divine love and tenderness.
It is only through God's mercy and
forgiveness that hardened hearts will be turned into loving hearts.
****
ST. STEPHEN,
FIRST MARTYR
Introduction
From the very beginning of its existence, the
Church suffered persecution like its founder Jesus. St. Stephen was of Greek
pagan origin and highly respected in the young Church of Jerusalem. Like Jesus,
he died praying for his persecutors and entrusted himself, even as he died,
into the hands of God. He had been one of the seven deacons who assisted the
apostles, particularly in the ministry to the poor. He is described in Acts of
the Apostles as “filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit” and “full of
fortitude.”
Opening Prayer:
Lord, our God, we honor today St. Stephen, the
first martyr of your young Church. Make
us good witnesses like him, people
filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit, men and women who are full of
fortitude, as we try to live the life of Jesus. Give us a great trust, that we may live and
die in your hands and make us pray for
those who harm us, that you may forgive
them and us. We ask you this through
Christ, our Lord.
Intercessions:
– For faithful witnesses, who
testify to God and to the values of the Gospel by their life and when necessary
by their death, we pray:
– For zealous and compassionate
people, who serve their neighbors in their need, we pray:
– For people persecuted because of
their faith, that they may keep steadfast in their faith and strong in the Holy
Spirit, we pray:
– For deacons in the Church, that
God may keep them generous in their ministry of service, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts:
Lord, our God, we bring before you bread and
wine, as we remember how St. Stephen gave food to the hungry. Make us too, ministers of your love, who care
for the poor, that no one in our Christian communities may suffer any want. For we try to be one heart and mind in Jesus
Christ, our Lord.
Prayer after Communion:
Lord our God, as we celebrate the memory of
St. Stephen, take away from us all fear and dispose us to bear witness in all serenity
to the death and resurrection of Jesus. May we learn from this martyr to become more like Jesus in what we say and in the way we live. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
Blessing
How much Stephen was like Jesus , living in
the hands of the Father and dying as he forgave those who were killing him and
entrusted himself to God. May God give us such a beautiful faith and bless us,
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Commentary: On the day after Christmas, it may seem strange that
persecution is our theme. St. Stephen is the church’s first martyr, and his
feast is celebrated in immediate proximity to the birth of the Lord whom he
served. Not only was a Stephen a grace-filled person, he was also a skilled
debater, with the result that his litigants proved to be no match for him.
As happens all too frequently,
disagreement turned to violence, with his opponents railing against Stephen.
They finally killed him in a classic case of religious zeal gone berserk. Among
the opponents is an interesting figure, the young Saul who will soon become
Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.
Early Christians fared no better than the
proto-martyr. The death of Stephen was an omen of things to come. Today’s Gospel
presents a picture of what transpired in the latter part of the first century.
Cruel torture, public litigation, sharp family division. The followers of Jesus
endured all of these things. But Jesus assured them of divine guidance and a
future that is certainly theirs. Perseverance spells salvation.
Have this mind in you that was also in Christ
Jesus—his reminder of Paul is clearly reflected in the death of Stephen. During
his trial, Jesus assured his accusers that they would one day see the Son of
Man coming on the clouds of heaven; so Stephen dies with a vision of this
eschatological figure. Stephen, like Jesus, dies by surrendering his spirit to
God.
The spirit of Christmas is not limited to
ornaments and tinsel. Nor even to the peace and calm of the creche. It is the
assurance that the child came to suffer that gives us hope, and so, like
Stephen, Christ’s surrender must be our own. As we pass through this valley of
tears, we are certainly called to suffer. But with Christ’s sentiments as our
own we shall surely prevail. And the true spirit of Christmas will never be
lost.
Points to Ponder:
Religious division
Family division
Christ the model of tolerance
Paul’s conversion
The assurance of
heaven.
